Mount-Royal: One Consistent Beautiful Mountain
Dominique Boulet
06.2023
The image of the mountain in the city centre with its towering cross has become synonymous with Montreal. Throughout its evolution, Mount-Royal has played an important role in Montreal’s history and development. Its impressive natural environment has always been valuable, but throughout its transformation, Mount-Royal’s story points to larger societal changes that were influential in Montreal becoming the city it is today. Mount-Royal is not only a physically important feature of Montreal, but it is socially emblematic in many ways. Its development into a park in the 19th century was part of a larger movement of the creation of large urban parks across North America (Bérubé, 2022). At the same time as Mount-Royal was transforming into a park, Montreal was becoming the country’s metropolis. Industrialization and urbanization equally had its impacts on the development of the city and the park. Since it’s inauguration in 1876, Mount-Royal Park has experienced many changes and accompanying societal shifts. This story explores the history of Mount-Royal throughout its different phases: its role in Montreal’s settlement, the period and process of design and landscaping, and the challenges and changes it has experienced as a large beloved park. The evolution of the mountain has been parallel to the development of the city and showcases the tensions between the growth of a metropolis and its inhabitants need for access to green space.
Mount-Royal’s Role in Montreal’s Settlement and Development
Today, in many parts of Montreal, the mountain acts as a guiding landmark. The view of Mount-Royal in the distance can give a sense of direction, it separates downtown from the neighbourhood of Outremont to the North, the Plateau-Mont-Royal to the East, and Westmount and NDG to the West. At 759 feet above sea level, Mount-Royal has a diverse natural topography with sections of grass, forest, and crags (Bellman, 1977). It is one of eight hills that collectively make the Monteregian Hills across the St. Lawrence lowland (Bellman, 1977). The hill’s presence has played an important role in the settlement of people in Montreal as far back as 3000 B.C. (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.). Its location at the centre of the island with forests and a river nearby made it an appealing area for indigenous people who eventually formed the village of Hochelaga (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.). In 1535, the hill was named when Jacques Cartier visited the new world for a second time and when sailing up the St. Lawrence River met the indigenous villagers of Hochelaga who brought him up the mountain which he deemed royal: the “Mont-Royal”. Before Mount-Royal became a large park it served as a central site from which important parts of the city of Montreal were developed.
The mountain’s surrounding areas served as places for education, as burial and memorial sites and later for rest and healing. Mount-Royal’s unique and rich environment attracted the wealthy like James McGill who established McGill University, one of Canada’s first academic institutions, on the foot of the mountain in 1821. Before colonialization, indigenous people were burying their dead on the mountain and in the 1850s the French, English and Jewish populations built several large cemeteries in the area. Because large sections of Mount-Royal were memorial sites the area avoided the rapid urbanization that the rest of the city experienced. In 1861, the industrial revolution brought concerns of health and the mountain was seen as a therapeutic natural space. It was around this time that the Mount-Royal was considered an excellent site for a large urban park as well as the preferred area to build health services. Three hospitals were built close to Mount-Royal to take advantage of its natural space: Hôtel-Dieu (1861), Royal Victoria Hospital (1893) and Shriners Hospital for Children (1925) (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.).
The natural topography of the mountain drew people to settle nearby and to build some of society’s important institutions in the surrounding areas. As the city continued to grow, Mount-Royal’s diverse environment would be seen as an opportunity to grant the population a large accessible natural space. The story of Mount-Royal becoming an identity-defining park, began in the 19th century as part of a larger movement of the creation of large urban parks across North America.
Image 1. View from the Kondiaronk lookout.
Mount-Royal’s Transformation into a Large Urban Park
In the first half of the 19th century in North America, cities were dense with many green spaces where official urban parks were often separate private spaces reserved for the elite (Bérubé, 2022). However, this changed in North America with the combination of urbanization and industrialization. Industrial neighbourhoods were developed in the centre of cities, which took away accessible green spaces while increasing pollution (Bérubé, 2022). This emphasized a growing socioeconomic gap; the working class was living near the city centre, closer to the pollution with less access to green spaces while the elites began to move outwards (Bérubé, 2022) Bringing nature back into city centres was one effort to ease socioeconomic problems and improve wellbeing. The increasing influence of the reformist movement contributed to building large urban parks in cities across North America, as they were preoccupied by the effects of the urban environment on health and moral (Bérubé, 2022). This coalesced with the City Beautiful movement and Boosterism, both generally influencing big cities to revitalize. Frederick Law Olmsted, an activist and journalist turned landscape architect, was extremely influential in the creation of large urban parks in cities across North America. This movement signalled the change towards parks as public spaces. Olmsted’s philosophy was to create open public spaces that would foster community, he thought parks should provide common ground, be commonly owned and be accessible to everyone (Beveridge, 2009).
In his design of many large urban parks in North America, Olmsted in part defined the park system for large cities. For Olmsted, and many others in the mid-19th century, large parks were ultimately seen as an antidote to the urban environment and lifestyle. These spaces were about the experience of the landscape with the goal of providing immersive and varying scenes that would counteract the stress of living in a big city (Beveridge, 2009). Olmsted was equally concerned with the types of activities that would take place within these landscape scenes. Parks were to have multiple spaces to serve different purposes, for example they should have places for people to socialize and more formal areas for civic events. The first park that Olmsted designed, and through which his philosophy can be clearly seen, is Central Park in 1858. Following his work in New York City, he was seen as the leading landscape architect of his time. His influence can be seen in several places across Canada: Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, the plains of Abraham in Quebec, and most notably Mount-Royal Park in Montreal (Bérubé, 2022). As his career advanced, Olmsted became increasingly preoccupied with the preservation of natural scenic areas which is reflected in his design of Mount-Royal Park (Beveridge, 2009).
As Montreal was becoming larger and more industrial, residents wanted Mount-Royal to become an official park and in 1872, the city purchased the land necessary to transform the mountain. Mount-Royal Park was to be designed from 522 acres of wilderness and in 1874 Olmsted was hired by the Montreal Park Commissioners to lead the project (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.; Bellman, 1977). His vision for the site was to build an organic network of roads, paths, and lookouts accessible to diverse visitors that would leisurely discover the park (Bellman, 1977). The natural topography of the mountain was very important to Olmsted, and he wanted to enhance it and create “one consistent beautiful mountain” (Bellman, 1977). Olmsted describes how he designed the footpaths as “successive incidents in a landscape poem, to each of which the mind is gradually led away, so that they become part of a consistent experience” (Bellman, 1977). For Olmsted, visitors of Mount-Royal Park were to leisurely experience and discover its landscape, almost forgetting they were in the city centre.
Image 2. A forested area of Mount-Royal Park.
The official inauguration of Mount-Royal Park was on May 24, 1876 (Bellman, 1977). Although Olmsted’s intention was that Mount-Royal Park be accessible to everyone, at first the mountain was still mostly accessible to elites (Canada’s History, 2019). This was due to the main path being designed for walking and carriages, although Olmsted envisioned walking as the main way of traveling up the mountain residents wanted a quick way to get to the main lookout. This resulted in those with carriages to access the park more frequently (Bellman, 1977). After the opening of the park, the city built a funicular for the public to be able to reach the lookout, but it closed in 1918 due to structural issues. To replace the funicular and to promote better access for all, there was a proposal to build a tramway to allow access to the mountain to those without private carriages (Bérubé, 2022). This proposal was met with incredible resistance from the bourgeoisie – illustrating the opposition to having parks be true public spaces even though Mount-Royal was designed with the health of the working class in mind (Bérubé, 2022). Eventually, a route for a streetcar was created and visitors were able to ride up the mountain on what is now Voie Camilien Houde. Not only was there an issue of who could access the park, but very closely related were the types of activities that were deemed desirable within the park. Over the years, tensions have arisen over the many different ideas and projects that have been proposed, the types of activities that should be encouraged, and who should be allowed to frequent the park.
The Park’s Many Proposals and Projects
Since Mount-Royal has become a park, there have been many different suggestions on how it could be improved. There have been proposals and projects involving new structures to add to the mountain and others focused on how people should be able to move around on the mountain. Some have become emblematic such as the cross and most have never been realized. The physical alterations proposed for Mount-Royal often had social implications or vice versa. Throughout the years there have been disagreements about what types of activities should take place in the park and who is welcome to frequent the park.
Structures and Transportation
The first structure to be built on Mount-Royal was the cross. Before there was the cross that stands today, there was a wooden cross mounted in 1643. In 1642, the area was experiencing extremely heavy rain, and fearing floods Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, prayed to be spared from flooding promising a cross on the mountain in return (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.). As there were no floods, Maisonneuve carried and mounted a wooden cross at the top of the mountain. It was not until 1874 that there would be talk of creating a permanent cross in memory of the first one. In 1924, the illuminated cross that still stands today would be built.
In Olmsted’s design of the park there were no proposals of sky grazing buildings or lavish restaurants, but after completion of the park many such projects would be considered. The first structure proposed to be built on Mount-Royal was in 1888, local Catholics asked the city to build an enormous statue of the Virgin Mary that was to be twice the height of the current cross that stands atop the mountain (Riga, 2019). This project was not realized due to an anti-statue petition started by anglophone Protestants that thought the project was offensive (Riga, 2019). The following year, the Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris which led to the proposal of a very similar looking steel tower by architect François Lapointe. Along with the tower there would be restaurants, balloon rides and parachute jumps. There were many similar proposals to build a tower to adorn the top of the mountain. In 1937, a proposal was put forward to build a nine-story building with each floor representing a province(Riga, 2019). Later, in the 1960’s, the idea to build a “French Canada pavilion” was proposed. During his mayorship in the 1980s, Jean Drapeau wanted a new building on the mountain that would be akin to the CN tower in Toronto (Riga, 2019). This project went silent after Drapeau left office. A commonality with all these projects, was that there was often resistance from Montreal’s residents to having a large structure disturb the unique landscape of the mountain. Instead, there are only three public buildings on the mountain - Smith House, Mount-Royal Chalet, and the Beaver Lake Pavilion – none of which tower over the city.
Image 3. A drawing of the Eiffel Tower-like structure proposed, published in La Presse in 1896.
In addition to all the buildings that have been proposed, there have been several suggestions involving how to get people through and up the mountain. The Montreal Mountain Boulevard Company was established in 1860s with the goal of building private toll roads, which was never realized. A cable car spanning four kilometres connecting Île Sainte-Hélène to the summit of Mount Royal was also suggested (Riga, 2019). This was prior to the funicular being built, which served as the main alternative to climbing up to the lookout on foot or by carriage. After the funicular was shut down in 1918 a new mode of transport was needed. One proposal included a tunnel from Park Avenue that would lead pedestrians to an elevator that would take them to the lookout. In 1927, there was another plan for a building with elevators on Park Avenue that would connect pedestrians to the lookout by a footbridge (Riga, 2019). Finally, the proposal that would be realized was the tramway in 1924. Which was in use for thirty-five years and has since been replaced by a bus line and roads that are accessible to cars.
Sports and Leisure
Closely tied to the infrastructural proposals were suggestions for the types of activities that should take place in the park. Since it’s inauguration, Mount-Royal has always been seen as a place for sport and leisure. For many decades, horseback riding, tobogganing and downhill and cross-country skiing have been popular sports (Riga, 2019). Horses have not been around since the 1950s and in 1979 the downhill ski slope on the northern flank was closed. Larger and more formal sport complexes have been suggested over the years. In 1965, a huge sports complex was proposed to be built between the Camilien-Houde lookout and Park Avenue. The complex was to accommodate bobsledding, ski jumps, stands for 15,000 spectators and a pavilion with a restaurant and dancing facilities (Riga, 2019). Although the project was seriously considered it was never realized. About twenty years later the University of Montréal proposed to build a ski complex near the university on the northern side and on the other side of the mountain McGill University wanted to build an indoor sports complex (Riga, 2019). The ski complex was never built because of biodiversity and landscaping concerns but McGill’s complex was realized. In addition to McGill’s sports facilities, the Beaver Lake Pavilion offers sport equipment rental in the winter for snow shoeing, cross-country skiing, and skating (Les amis de la montagne, n.d.). Although there is no large sports complex, sports are an important part of Mount-Royal Park’s culture and to this day many residents toboggan and cross-country ski on the mountain.
